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Arcane Guardian is an Arcane Enhancement that provides a 15% chance whenever the player receives damage to increase the Warframe's armor for 20 seconds.
Can be sold for 
500.
Effect[]
| Rank | Flat Armor Bonus |
|---|---|
| 0 | +150 |
| 1 | +300 |
| 2 | +450 |
| 3 | +600 |
| 4 | +750 |
| 5 | +900 |
Acquisition
- Awarded for killing or capturing the Eidolon Gantulyst.
- Dropped in Rotation C of Orphix Neptune Proxima or Veil Proxima missions.
| Item | Source | Chance | Expected | Nearly Guaranteed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Veil Proxima Orphix / C | 5.63% | ~ 17 C Rotations | 119 ± 39 C Rotations |
|
Neptune Proxima Orphix / C | 6.90% | ~ 14 C Rotations | 96 ± 32 C Rotations |
|
Eidolon Gantulyst Kill | 15.68% | ~ 6 Kills | 40 ± 13 Kills |
|
Eidolon Gantulyst Capture | 11.92% | ~ 8 Kills | 54 ± 18 Kills |
All drop rates data is obtained from DE's official drop tables.
See Mission Rewards#Standard Missions for definitions on reward table rotations.
For more detailed definitions and information,
visit here.
History[]
- Arcane Guardian was first introduced in the Trial mission The Law of Retribution, which was retired in Update 22.14 (2018-03-01).
- The Operation: Scarlet Spear event sold Arcane Guardian from Little Duck for 1,500
![ScarletCredits](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="32" height="32"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
Scarlet Credits. - The Operation: Orphix Venom event sold Arcane Guardian from Father for 300 Phasic Cells.
Notes[]
- The additional armor is not affected by mods and is additive to total armor. For example, a
Chroma with a max rank 
Steel Fiber, and active Rank 5 ![ArcaneGuardian](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="44" height="32"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
Arcane Guardian will have an armor rating of:
Base Armor × (1 + Armor Mods) + Arcane Guardian = 370 × (1 + 1.1) + 900 = 1,677 armor. - The Arcane Duration cannot be refreshed, while one instance is still active.
- This Arcane cannot be activated while
Revenant's 
Mesmer Skin is active.
Media[]
Patch History[]
Update 31.6 (2022-06-09)
- ARCANE STAT CHANGES PER RANK
We’ve adjusted the values of older Arcanes with the goal of making lower rank Arcanes more viable, and more desirable while collecting as a result. In short, there are three stats that each Arcane tends to have (speaking generally) -- for example, a percentage chance, a stat buff, and the duration of the buff.
Certain Arcanes increase all of these stats per rank (making them scale exponentially), but we are changing it so that only one stat is affected by rank (making it scale linearly). The other stats will now be at the max-rank value regardless of the Arcane Rank, thereby buffing lower-rank Arcanes as a result.
- Arcane Guardian
On Damaged: 15% (was 3%) chance for +150/900 Armor for 20s
Update 22.12 (2018-02-09)
- Armor applied is now an absolute amount (instead of relative) with a base value of 150.
Update 16.0 (2015-03-19)
- Introduced.
94 comments
It is triggered on block
"The Arcane Duration cannot be refreshed, while one instance is still active." makes it pretty much useless.
Works fine for me. Basically 99% uptime.
Shield gating mitigates that
https://overframe.gg/build/478856/wukong-prime/wukong-prime-end-game-all-purpose-build/
Why does the tooltip on this say 90% chance for +900 armor? I don't see any mention of such a nerf in the changelog?
It is a mistake :
Before, the chance to proc was : 3% * tiers of the arcane.
Now, it is 15%, always.
But on overframe, they changed 3% to 15%, without remove the fact the it was multiply by the arcane tiers.
Is this still worth it, in a Rhino tank build?
THEY SAID it not work when rhino shield and revenant shield still active!
Rhino's Iron Skin scales with Armour.
You are proccing it before casting Iron Skin to make it stronger.
Works now with rhino, even if iron skin is active.. with the recent over shield change
Update 36: Still works on Iron Skin!
Shame, the fact that it can't refresh its duration while it's up is a letdown
How is he mad? It's rather vexing to see people complain about something that isn't even an issue. Toughen up, you're too soft, lmao.
Wtf
Toughen up?
Toughen up on an rpg game the brainrot is strong on this one :sob:
No arcane revive?
This arcane is hot garbage, don't waste your plat on this thing.
I've just read all the comments about squishy frames, the before/after changes to arcanes, shield gating and tenno armor type.
So here it is a nice base for any frame when you want to have free space for mods not related with survivability:
Forget Vitality & Steel Fiber. Go Physique (aura) + arcane guardian + magus elevate.
It's enough on the very majority of frames, for surprisingly mid/high lv content. Sorties are a good example, while arbi might require a slightly bigger EHP pool. Some frames can even go Steel Path with no more than that. And if you have a fully ranked Primed Sure Footed, don't hesitate, since it's an exilus mod ;)
I don't bother with shield gating, I prefer high efficiency to spam abilities, and I must say: the Tenno armor type being no more vulnerable to toxin damage is really the change that made this build possible on so many frames. Because vs toxin damage before those changes, not only shields were useless, but armor too. So you *had* to double-stack this arcane to use most frames, now you don't anymore. Atlas has replaced Inaros in my builds, no more need for huge HP pools, I look instead for high *EHP* pools now (as opposed as before the Tenno armor type change).
I'm surprised so few of the comments relate the same "feel".
"Go Physique" i stopped reading here.
Have fun trying to proc the arcane
Cries in maxed arcane never proccing…
"Physique", Do u work in a circus?
that's a lot of unnecessary nonsense, the truth is this arcane is hot garbage without adaptation bc you need some DR while it reprocs, & vice versa while adaptation ramps up, kind of hot garbage separately while together they work pretty well (up to lv 200ish or so, after that you want shield gating) . If you really want to go crazy you can add arcane double back to bring any frames DR up to 99%.
Even at max rank, that 20s cooldown is ridiculous.
It's not a cooldown, it's the duration of the buff. It can get triggered again right after the end of the buff. But I know what you mean, just clarifying for players who never tried the "old" arcane guardian and might misunderstand.
I'd still say it's.. decent? The downside is that, like, it doesn't refresh anymore. Gotta re-proc it which is kinda dumb, imo.
Very true but I find that mine at rank 2 was activating very often. Now that it's max I see the duration counter more than I don't. The nerf was definitely big but it's far from useless on my kit.
why the hell did they remove the re-proc ? now every frame other tanks are dead on high level missions unless they do some cheap ass CC. Thats just bullshit...
Back to the Inaros and rhino spam...
What a waste of arcane...
It can also proc while blocking: Useful for squishy frames to trigger the effect on higher levels since every block in the game blocks 100%.
If you give hildryns pillage to any frame they become a tank
Or nova's null star, it gives 5% damage mit per ball, buuut if enemies get to close you lose them
@A Lone Tenno ...I was actually one of the players who used Channeling+Blocking+Parry+Countering+Unairu before Amalgam Javlok Magazine Warp was a thing. I have been gone from the game since the launch of Railjack and recently got back grinding my way through all the content and figuring out the new changes. The nerf to the focus schools really forces me to play like everyone else and or figure out a new style lol.
it would be nice to also insert the image of the game's buff icon for all pages with items that generate buffs
> MUH SHITGATING
Clearly you guys didn't play ME3 multiplayer or you would knew that shieldgate doesn't do shit if it lesser than your ping to host (most cases) and even there it isn't reliable, and in Warframe enemies number shooting at you at the same time are much higher.
What kind of Ping are you getting where shieldgating is not a noticeable change, because even at 300ms you'll notice not getting oneshot when your shield is up.
it makes a big difference for a lot of frames. And even if it didn't work, that would not change that this arcane is basically as good as it was before.
And how is this related to Arcane guardian?
Taking damage to shields can proc the arcane, so having less shields (in order to exploit shield gating) means you might actually have arcane guardian off when enemies start damaging your health (that is, when the shield gating exploit is off too, and/or the dmg is toxin type). The easier the game becomes, the more complains there are about WF being difficult xD
I find this arcane especially useful to protect any frame from toxin damage. As a reminder toxin does not need to proc to bypass shield and shield gating (this is a reference to "arcane resistance"). Having your shields still up and arcane guardian already on is really helpful, maybe more than shield gating actually imao. Still, that augur set and in some cases the brief respite aura + bad efficiency can help too, and I'd rather combine them with this arcane than a dragon key ;)
Wtf is wrong with these devs lol?!?!?!?!?!? Why tf would you reduce armor on guardian and then give squishy frames a marginal increase even though it’s been nerfed so it’s already underperforming...I’m really trying to see the logic in this one and I don’t. Double stacked guardians were THE ONLY REASON some of my frames were able to stay in an arbitration for longer than a half an hour without having to hide in some corner spamming a CC ability and sniping shit. I guess it’s back to inaros or nothing for most people...you literally just reinforced the drop off for pretty much every single one of your frames in “high level” content, yet your approach was to make these frames more viable by giving most of them +50 nerfed armor LOL. Because +50 base armor did jack shyt in any situation ever.....now I have to go back to tridolon hell for the next month to farm this now garbage arcane all over again for a month. Honestly wtf
Look at that salty crybaby, that reads exactly like that Navy Seal Copypasta.
You aren't roasting anyone, only yourself.
Pathetic.
...just use arcane aegis? Due to the .3 srcond of invurnerabiliy after losing all shields this arcane gives you a good long time window to GTFO and live on
Or use a few augur mods to turn your abilities into panic buttons?
Or use your frames survival/movement abilities if your shield gate triggers to run off?
I can only think of banshee and maybe mirage as frames that dont have an ability that SOMEHOW buys them time or just outright saves them in those 1.2 secs of invurnerabiliy. All other frames have some tool to make an escape, be it invisibility, a high dmg redux, a teleport or movement ability.
Im sure the nerfs CAN impact some playstyles more then others, like solo runs or, dunno, meelee on squishy frames, but the overwhelming majority benefits from this. I do a lot of arbitations with lots of different frames and thanks to arcane aegis and augur ive really not been met by much difficulty to survive
OP may not present himself well, but I have to agree with his analysis.
Everyone in this thread is suggesting alternatives to using Arcane Guardian. None of that addresses OP's fundamental complaint, which is that Arcane Guardian sucks compared to the old version. Nobody has offered an argument to oppose that observation.
The introduction of a cooldown while the effect is active really hurts its use cases. The additional 300 armor is worth very little in light of that.
I also have to agree that the inability to have it refresh while active is what makes it far more unreliable for squishy frames, as you have to keep taking damage that would normally kill you without the arcane just to hope you get it refreshed again. Basically, either you have to try to get hit by the lowest damage sources possible (fire procs from napalm fire patches as an example) or already be a tanky frame that can tank the hits from enemies past level ~40 to get it to proc.
If it was only 10% chance to activate when maxed, but it also could refresh, it would be reasonable imo.
Great.
Recent update killed this arcane. Guardian can't refresh it's durration if the effect is already active, this means squishy frames are gonna be even squisher now since they'll drop as soon as the effect ends and do not have enough survivability to live until the next proc (which the proc chance was nerfed to 15% from 20%) Small armor buffs, 25% shield DR (which is practically unnoticable past level 60 btw) and a shield gate isn't enough to make up for the loss of consistency the nerf gave this arcane. Guardian was the one arcane that allowed squishy frames to survive past level 70 - 80 with any form of consistency without relying on invisibility.
Ultimatum is a poor replacement, i don't want to have to use Sigma & Octantis on all my squishy frames just to keep them viable.
Absolute garbage change that took away more than it gave.
Rip all frames without DR abilities or Invisibility.
Too bad most squishy frames will take almost double the damage now. Imagine a developer discouraging build diversity in 2020.
^clearly you have no idea wtf you’re talking about, good luck stacking everything you just mentioned on one frame and having 3 mod slots left to build for their actual playstyle. Guardians were replacements for all of those mods that did jack until you stacked them all together and had no room for ability specific mods. Now we have to stack primed vigor with adaptation, primed flow, quick thinking for most squishy frames, and for others who are still going to get their asses handed to them you need to stack hunter adrenaline and rage as well if you want to participate in anything above level 100....literally 5 mod slots needed out of 8 to make the less than 100 armor frames not die in 1 hit now within 5 minutes of any arbitration. You were never able to utilize anything you mentioned before without sacrificing a huge amount of your build.
Stop bitching about loss of guardian stacking and look at other good stuff that other users have mentioned.Shieldgating,shield damage reduction,special shield,health and armor type for tennos.
Just because your dumbass cant look beyond "muh guardian" doesnt mean the developers are discouraging build diversity.Removal of arcane stacking encourages build diversity not discourages it.
the positive reactions to the recent change to this arcane baffle me. it no longer refreshes its duration while active. makes it kinda useless IMO. for situations where you'd want to use it, risk will be too high between procs for it to be worth slotting
Well this peeps who can't get over with the nerf dont really have any idea cus wth. Arcane isnt the only thing you can have to survive? grow up people. Squishy frames are meant to be squishy not tanky. Thats why its up to you on how to manage to survive long. Arcane isn't the only answer for that. Youre probably building mods wrong so youre the one who dont really have any idea on whats going on with building mods. So shut up. I can do steelpath lvl more than 200 grineer just by using Hydroid which people think that warframe sucks, which isn't. Its up to you on how you build your frame for certain mission you think they can benefit from.
So DE practically nerfed this thing to shit among other great arcanes as of February 28th 2020.
Before they're going to apply the changes, assuming you have 2 R3 arcanes, you could have two 20% chances to trigger a 600 armor buff for 20 seconds, even a 4% chance for a +1200 armor buff.
When the update hits, you'll need 21 R0 arcanes to get a 15% chance of +600 armor for 30 seconds.
Arcane requirements are more than doubled, chance reduced by a relative 25%. Nice job there, DE.
Not to mention that, if you only have 1 maxed set right now (R3) it's probably gonna be worse after the update. Which completely denies the purpose of these changes being towards double stacking arcanes, it's just a fking kick to the balls
Well.4% chance for 1200 armor but takes 2 arcane slots
or
15% chance for 900 armor and only 1 arcane slot.Your choice
It won't have 100% uptime. It no longer procs while active. DE nerfed it all the way out of the meta...
I'd say let us all nerf DE by stop playing warframe altogether, let's see what their reaction would be
Arcane Guardian
On Rank 5: On Damaged:
15% chance for +600 Armor for 30s
RIP
F
I've been seeing this proc with Iron Skin active lately. might wonna update that.
The Arcane can be activated during 3 seconds of invulnerability after casting.
Does 2x arcane guardiens stack ?
Each has his own chance to activate. It will stack if both arcanes happen to be activated at the same time.
So it's good to equip 2 because it can stack if both trigger, but it also helps because it also makes it so it triggers more often.
Yes they stack. Also I did the math and it's worth having 2.
It says 20% chance to proc or 0.20.
That means it doesn't proc 80% or 0.80.
Now let's look at the math if you stack two...
Both proc
0.2 x 0.2 = 0.04 or 4%
At least 1 proc
0.2 x 0.8 = 0.16 or 16%
or
0.8 x 0.2 = 0.16 or 16%
32% of at least one since you add them
Neither proc
0.8 x 0.8 = 0.64 or 64%
Conclusion, 32% of the time you will proc at least 1 of the 600 armor buffs. There is a slight 4% chance you will get luck and both will proc giving you 1200 additional armor. The other 64% of the time nothing happens.
32% is extremely good, that's basically 1/3 of hits which is pretty common. Also keep in mind that the buff stays up for 20% so it's entire possible that it will trigger again before the 20s are up and become higher. I've tested this when you get have only 1 active, it starts a second buff with it's own 20s timer. So it prolongs the effect. Was hoping it would refresh the timer and stack both.
32% is for one proc, not at least one proc. Semantics, but it does matter.
It's a 36% chance for at least one.